Invincible
by AkuBeku
Summary: Over twenty years after the Promised Day, a new threat rises up in Amestris, this time seeking invincibility.
1. Arrival In Resembool

**The wait is over, kids.**

**where doing it man**

**where MAKING THIS HAPEN**

**Oh I'm so happy to finally get this out like wow this has been something I have wanted to just get over with for a while and now I'm taking the first step :)**

**FMA doesn't belong to me**

* * *

"Nina, Nina, Nina, they're 10 minutes late."

"I know, Karen, I've been watching the clock. Just calm down a little and wait. We've only been here for fifteen minutes."

I groan in mock agony, "Fifteen minutes? Nina, I could've made a sandwich and eaten it in that amount of time, but instead I'm sitting here waiting for your friends."

My best friend, Nina Elric, just rolls her eyes, "Just read a book, like Jess is doing."

The two of us turn in sync to see my other best friend and Nina's cousin Jessica Elric, who's sitting with her nose so deep in a novel I'm sure I saw it poking through the pages. She doesn't even look up at the mention of her name.

"Well if I start to read, I'll get too into it and when they _do_ come, I won't want to tear my eyes away." I say, though of course I just don't want to tell Nina that my older brother has, in fact, run away with the book I'm reading right now and I probably won't get it back until he finishes it.

Nina grins, then pulls out her own book, "Well that's too bad, then." She hands me twenty cens before losing herself in the book she's holding, "Go buy yourself something to eat, and stop complaining."

I take the money happily, hug Nina in thanks and then run to the small sweet stall that's only recently opened up, I hand the man behind the counter the money and get a hot dog for all three of us before returning to the seat we were all waiting on.

Jess and Nina both take their food, both of them murmuring their thanks (They're both so far into the reading zone), and I'm left to watch the horizon, my eyes fixed on the tracks in the distance. I then realise that I don't know which way the train will come from, so I turn my head left and right, deciding on which way to look. I finally land on looking to my right because that way fades into the horizon and I want to know what it'd look like when the train comes from all the way back there (Would it appear like a dot in the distance? Would it look like it's coming over a hill? I'm actually really curious about this now).

The three of us are waiting for a family friend of Jess and Nina's, children of Jess' father's old boss or something. Jessica is the child of the famous (Not-so-famous anymore, but he was once known across the whole of Amestris) ex-State Alchemist, Edward Elric and his wife/automail mechanic Winry Elric. She so many siblings it's not even funny.

Nina, on the other hand, is the daughter of Edward's brother Alphonse (He used to wear armour a lot, I don't know) and a princess, Mei Elric. She's an only child, but if a lot of people were to die, then she'd be the Empress of our neighbouring country, Xing, which is pretty cool (Of course, it'd suck if people died, but the whole royalty thing is still awesome).

I'm not that special when compared to them. My dad's in prison, but that's the most exciting thing I can say about my family, really. I work in the military because when I was growing up, I just _adored_ the idea of fighting crime. Because I live in Resembool, there isn't much crime to fight, but I get to deal with a lot of Xingese refugees who are crossing the border illegally, so that's fun. At home, my Mum's going insane from having to raise three children (My brothers, Stefan and Felix, are about as impossible as I am when it comes to not being a little shit), so she's hired a he-nanny lately to take care of Felix, because he's the youngest. About a month ago, Stefan started putting 'the moves' on the nanny and I don't think Mum really knows how to feel about this. Felix thinks it's cool, though, because he's a lot looser on homework now that he's spending all his time flirting with my older brother. His name is Joseph, but because Mum insists we call him 'Mr Nanny', Felix and I have taken to the nickname Manny. He loves it.

We're getting off-topic here, so I'm just gonna jump straight to the thing with the train, and why I'm up at six in the morning waiting for it to arrive. I mean, I don't even know these people, WHY DID I HAVE TO GE T UP AT FIVE A.M. ON A SATURDAY!?

Ahem.

About a month ago, Jess' dad got a call from the Fuhrer of Amestris (I know, right? This family's close and personal with the leaders of two countries, it's insane). The Fuhrer explained that both of his sons were taking an interest in Alchemy, and that he could think of no better teachers than the famous Elric brothers, as they were the best Alchemists he knew (Don't quote me on this, but I think his wife was holding him at gun point in order to make him compliment them), so now we've got two part-Xingese hotties coming at us on a train, they'll stay here in Amestris until Summer break, when they'll head back to their own homes. After break, they come back to resume their training. This'll carry on until the Elrics agree that they're about ready to head out into the world and put their training to use. This takes a lot of time, apparently, and I'm not too sure Winry'll be happy with two teenage boys sleeping in her house all that time, but it'll be fun mostly.

I hear the whistle blowing in the distance (I was looking the wrong way, god damn it), and I stand up, tugging Nina and Jess with me, suddenly excited to be getting somewhere with this whole waiting thing. The train turns a corner and starts approaching us, before skidding to a stop. This time, it's Jess who does the tugging. She pulls us forwards, towards the door of compartment F, and then stands there, watching the door carefully.

I remember Nina saying something about Jess having a 'thing' with one of the boys, which in the world of Jess means that she's got a massive crush on him and she won't act on it in a million years (I can't really talk, though, I'm about as flirty as a head of lettuce).

Suddenly the door gets pulled open from the inside and standing there…

Standing there….

Is some 80-year-old guy that proceeds to jump off the train for a cigarette. I guess he must be using this window of opportunity to feed his habit, and when the train goes to move again, he'll jump back on board (Because no one ever stops at Resembool). I burst into laughter at my own stupidity. Part of me was expecting the whole smoke machine with a dazzling man coming down and taking Jess into his arms or something.

I don't know.

After a few seconds, two young men, around my age, come around the corner.

One of them was lecturing the other about how he didn't pack his bags before they came to a stop. This was the one Jessica hugged almost immediately, and then stepped back, bright red, and hugged the other one to cover up her embarrassment.

Nina hugged both the men (Twins, I noticed. They were almost identical), and then turned to me.

"Charles, Zack, this is Karen Lakota. Karen, meet Zack and Charles Mustang."

* * *

"My Lord, your favoured daughter, Heng Sau is here to see you."

Ling Yao blinked in confusion, "Isn't Heng meant to be with her clan? I thought the Saus were kind of… busy… what with their country being the closest to Drachma and all…"

Ling's servant bowed low, "Apparently, my lord, she has important things to discuss with you."

The Emperor nodded slowly, thinking. He then let a large, childish grin cover his face, "Well, I'm not really complaining, Heng is always fun to be around!"

The servant nodded, before turning to the palace doors and motioning for the doorman, a tall, stocky man that looks rather nervous to be in the presence of the Emperor. He opens the door quickly, letting in a beautiful young woman that looked _so much_ like her mother, the only woman that Ling had children with before he broke tradition and married his vassal.

"Heng! How good it is to see you, young one!"

Heng Sau bowed low, her eyes flicking to the doorman for a brief second, "Father, would it be too much to ask for us to speak in total privacy?"

Ling glanced at his two servants as well. He had noticed how both of them had muddled up chi, but he was used to that, as many people tend to get nervous around him, but maybe Heng was noticing something else in one of them.

The emperor cast his daughter a dark look and nodded. He knew how shaky Xing and Drachma had been recently, and for her to travel to the palace to talk to him in private could only mean one thing: war. Ever since Xing announced their so far unshakable alliance with Roy Mustang and the country of Amestris, Drachma seemed to take it as a personal offense to them. Ling had been trying to keep his country from entering war again, he wasn't going to allow Xing to turn into Amestris part 2, but The Sau clan had recently been taking the worst end of his cowardice, as they have been having skirmishes with the neighbouring country for years.

The doors to the throne room started to close when Ling felt a spike of chi. He glanced around automatically to look for Lan Fan, his bodyguard and wife, but of course she was at the Chang clan with Mei's cousin during her pregnancy.

There was no one there to protect him as he turned to see the knife.

There was no one there to protect him as it flew through the air.

Time slowed down and Ling looked past the flying silver to see the doorman rushing away from the throne room, his chi now full of a feeling of victory.

A grunt of pain filled the throne room as the knife took an innocent victim.

* * *

**Two days ago.**

Dimitri Gurevich was _not_ a professional.

He only ever worked for 'The Boss', a man that threatened his family constantly to make sure that he stayed in line, and even then it was very... casual.

The Boss would send Dimitri a letter with no return address, telling him the name and address of his next target and he would act on that within the next month, or his family would all be taken, tortured and killed. After the job's done, a new letter always arrived with exactly 5313 cens in it. The man always seemed to think it was a strange number, but there was probably some sort of code behind it, and if Gurevich could crack the code, he could find out who his employer is and maybe The Boss could be his next target.

Gurevich looks around him, taking in the beautiful scenery of Xing. It was so much different to his home in Drachma, where there were mountains and bar fights and dead trees. After the new Emperor took the throne of Xing, the place sure did improve. Ling Yao was a kind man that personally taught all of his children only the greatest of life lessons. But now, sadly...

You look down at your letter, written neatly in pitch black letters were the words 'Emperor Ling Yao, the Royal Palace, Xing'. Gurevich knew somehow that this was going to be his last kill. There would be no way he could possibly _not_ get caught after finishing a kill like this, so he might as well make it a big one.

He looked down at his bag, which held money to buy a knife while he was in town. No way would he be allowed to bring weapons across the border with this heat between the countries.

He had more than enough money, though, so he quickly ducked into the nearest post office and bought a pen and paper, speaking in shaky Xingese. Once he'd acquired the tools he asked for, Dimitri Gurevich started to write a final letter to his family.

He was finally ready.

Ready to kill the Emperor.

* * *

**:o Is Ling dead?**

**The world may never know.**

**Anyways thank you very much for reading this!**

**Please review :)**


	2. The Emperor's Wife

_**AND YOU THOUGHT I**_'_**D NEVER UPLOAD!**_

_**BWAHAHAHAHAH**_

**Yeah FMA belongs to Arakawa-sensei.**

* * *

"MY LORD!"

Lan Fan ran through the rubble of the bomb that was set off immediately after the loud grunt of pain that seemed to fill the palace.

"MY LORD!"

Something moved in the corner... someone that survived the bomb... the Empress ran to the movement to see a servant stand up, his clothes torn and his eyes terrified. She helped him to his feet, and then turned to watch for more signs of life.

"LING!"

Maybe if she were paying more attention, she'd notice the servant's unusual chi, how it leapt with fear, but also accomplishment.

Maybe if she weren't listening for the familiar groan of 'food', she'd hear the servant state that the bomb was a message from Drachma.

But out of pure fear for her husband's life, Lan Fan didn't notice anything, as the servant turned and _ran_. He ran off to some unknown place to the Empress, but she didn't care because there, over there, the slightest little shake of the royal red bricks.

A hand broke the surface of the rubble.

Lan Fan prayed to god it belonged to him.

* * *

"So wait a second..." Charles points a finger to Jessica, his eyebrows furrowed, "You're the second youngest out of... seven children...?"

I look around the dinner table at Jess, Charles, Zack, Uncle Edward and Aunt Winry. The other Elrics were meant to come, but then Aunt Mei accidentally hit a sheep with her car and Uncle Al just _had_ to take the opportunity to practice his still-a-little-rocky alkahestry and save a poor sheep's life at the same time.

Jess smiles kindly at the guest, and then shakes her head, "There are six of us."

"Oh, yeah, my bad... ok so there's... Urey, Trisha, Sara...?" Jess nods patiently to Charles, letting him catch up on his Elric-ography, "Caleb, you, of course, and then..." I glance between the two, wondering if hottie-Mc-Mustang will be able to actually guess who is possibly the most obvious of Elrics, "... uhhhhhhhh... Karen, help me out."

"Tammy" I said, grinning at his reaction, "Tamika Elric" Charles' mouth hangs open as he stares at me.

"The actress!? Are you kidding me?"

"Not even a little."

Zack looks over at his twin, rolling his eyes a little, "It takes you like 2 hours to remember everyone's names every time you get here, man."

"Zack, I don't think you understand, it's been five years since I was here last, and every time I do come I only ever hang out with Jess and Nina."

"And not to mention he has a new family to remember now." I put in, raising my hand to show that he's definitely going to meet the rest of the Lakotas. Charles fist-bumps me with this really, really attractive grin on his face. I'm ashamed to say that my ears do go a little pink.

"Hey, Zack, are you eating your pie or what?" Zack looks over to see who spoke, only to find Uncle Ed himself staring down at his pie. I expect Zack to start fighting Ed tooth and claw for his food, but instead he passes the plate over to him, before reaching over to Charles' plate and stealing his pie. Charles, of course, starts to argue, but Zack just downs the food without even giving his twin an apologetic glance.

I look over at Jess and give her an approving nod that basically says 'I'll be a bridesmaid at your wedding, right?' and she just sighs and joins in the conversation that Edward and Winry are having about automail.

I lean towards the now-pieless twin and grin, "Can you remember Nina's family, Charles?"

"Dude, she's an only child."

"I still think you might have troubles there, man."

"It is literally just her, Teacher Alphonse and Aunt Mei. That's it. That's everyone."

"Yes, but then you go into more distant relatives and you get Uncle Ed and then it goes back into Jess' family."

"Well, if you're such an Elric-expert, then _you_ name them all!"

Charles straightens up like he's won the argument, but I just shrug and pull up my hand, pointing to a finger for each name that I manage to name.

"Well, there's Tammy as the youngest, then Jess, Caleb, Sara, Trisha and Urey. All five of them are Uncle Ed's and Aunt Winry's kids. Ed's brother is Alphonse, who, with Aunt Mei, had Nina Elric. Aunt Mei's actually an ex-princess of Xing and Emperor Ling Yao's favoured sister. She used to be his heir, but then he had kids and stuff, whose names are far too many in number to list off." I glance at Charles to see if he's keeping up. He's actually managed to push his plate away from him and pull out a notebook, and is currently taking notes (Ignoring Aunt Winry's protests about books at the table), "Uhh... Well, if you want to learn about my family, we have me, my little brother, Felix, my older brother Stefan and my mother... Should I go into careers? I think I'm gonna go into careers."

(Groans from everyone at the table)

"From the eldest of Ed's kids, Urey is a doctor, occasionally working with Trisha on her automail, because Trisha's a mechanic, yeah. Sara's working on relations with Xing under your father, Caleb's a writer, Jess is going to Central to do teaching later this year and Tammy, as you know, is doing stage acting and stuff. I work for the Amestrian military, but since our Fuhrer's a champ, I'm working in Resembool instead of some other run-down town on the edge of the map, and Nina's currently studying Alkahestry with Mei."

Charles nods at his notepad, then looks up at me, "And how many of you do alchemy?"

(A really load groan from Uncle Ed)

"Umm... Well Nina does, obviously. I know absolutely nothing about science, so not me. And then Trisha, Caleb and Jess all know and practice alchemy, though they don't actually use it in their professions... except for Trisha, who sort of cheats sometimes to make automail... and-"

"SERIOUSLY GUYS, SHUT IT!"

I burst into laughter, looking over at a red-faced Edward, and then back to my apparent pupil, who looks like a deer caught in headlights.

"Haha, ok then, sorry, Uncle Ed. I think I'm going to go now, anyways. Felix will need help on his homework."

The table choruses out a 'goodbye' to me and I stand to leave, giving a wave to Jess, who smiles back. I catch Charles' eyes and he waves goodbye at me and I sort of realise something really important in that moment...

When the leader of the country manages to be really attractive at forty, and has this really hot wife that kicks-ass... it kind of makes sense that their kids are hot...

Yeah, long story short, I totally have a thing for Charles.

* * *

"I dunno, Winry, I feel like they should _do_ something. Like how Teacher taught Al and me, they need to go somewhere barren and terrifying and get attacked by men in masks and almost starve to death and have an epiphany about stupid phrases, and they need to do all that without using alchemy."

"Edward, I completely second that idea, but where do you suggest they go? We're in the East and Yock Island is in the South. We are _not_ going all that way just to drop off the two sons of our country's leader."

"Ah, Roy can suck it for all I care."

"Edward!" Winry hit her husband on his real leg, getting a soft 'ow' in response.

"Maybe they can live with Ling for a month, that'll kill 'em... actually nah, if they're with the second living embodiment of gluttony, and then they'll surely be well cared-for."

"Do you have _any_ friends that you don't talk badly about?"

The ex-alchemist paused for a while, lifting his hand to point to Winry, then thinking better of it, "I don't talk badly about Al..."

"Edward, just last week you said that he was blind and brainless for marrying Mei."

"That wasn't Al I was talking about, that was Mei!"

"That was both of them!"

"Well just because she's a freaking desert-monkey that still thinks I'm short- THAT'S IT!"

Winry blinked in confusion, "What's it?"

"The desert! We can put them in the desert for a month!"

"Ed, that's a bad-"

"We'll give them the knife Teacher gave us and then send 'em out towards the ruins of Xerxes!"

"You shouldn't use the land of your ancestors as training grou-"

"Give them a map to show them which parts of the desert are still occupied by angry Ishvalans!"

"They could just cross over the desert and go to Li-"

Edward threw a fist into his open palm, "And Al and I can watch over them the way Teacher sent Mason to watch over us!"

"You're going to beat the living shit out them with a mask on, Ed? Really?"

Ed finally seemed to notice his wife talking, "Don't worry, Winry. We won't do that, Roy might torch me alive. Instead we'll just watch from a distance. Al can keep track of their chi."

"Edward this is a really bad idea."

"Ah, don't worry about it, Winry. They'll be _fine_. We'll send 'em out next week, maybe, and then keep them close to the borders. If my leg hurts too much, I'll come back straight away, I promise."

Ed kisses his wife on the forehead and then heads straight upstairs to organise a bed for the Mustangs in his son's old room.

* * *

"Lan... Fan...?"

"My lord!"

The hand in the rubble opened and Lan Fan ran to her Emperor's side, grabbing him tight and pulling him out of the debris. Tears of happiness were already sliding down her face, but she didn't bother wiping them away.

"My lord, are you okay?" She pressed a pale hand to Ling's cheek, smiling happily down at him.

"'M fine, Lan Fan... but... Heng..."

"Of course, my lord, of course!" Lan Fan looked up and turned on the spot, trying to drink in the details of the explosion, which was something she silently cursed herself for not doing earlier.

Eventually she noticed a tuft of black hair that sent her running, praying to all of the gods that Heng was alright. She reached the tuft of hair and threw the debris surrounding it aside, before leaning forwards and looking at her step-daughter's lifeless form.

Even if she wasn't crushed to death by the rubble, Lan Fan was certain that Heng Sau would've died regardless. She could tell this by the small gash on the girl's stomach, something far too oddly shaped to have been caused by falling building parts. There was also the fact that she was situated at what would appear to be the 'perfect spot' for an assassination, somewhere close enough to the door for the assassin to aim well and run for it easily, meaning that Heng either jumped in front of Ling during the initial attack, or was the target for the assassination.

Lan Fan lifted the last bit of rock, a piece that lay over the entire left shoulder of the teenager, and she saw the final reason to believe that Heng was killed before the explosion.

There, going directly into her heart was a poisoned blade.

And Lan Fan knew that no one would go to such lengths to kill a princess.

Someone was trying to kill her Emperor.

* * *

**Ok there we go! Two chapters up, 18 to go. (Readers groan in frustration and throw their laptops across the room)**

**I got a review saying that they don't really understand who everyone is so I'm just gonna write here who they all are for a reference. Feel free to not read these next few paragraphs.**

**Edward and Winry got married in 1919 and had their first kid in 1920. This kid was Urey, who is 25 when this story begins (1945). He then got it on with Winry and they had five more children - Trisha (24), Sara (22), Caleb (21), Jess (19) and Tammy (17). Alphonse, however, only had one kid, Nina (18) because Mei really didn't like childbirth. **

**After publishing a book and settling down in Resembool once and for all, Winry and Edward befriended Claudia and Thomas Lakota, who, at the time, had two children - Stefan (23) and Karen (19). Karen's sort of the main protagonist of the story. Claudia became pregnant with her third child, Felix (11) just before her Thomas was caught stealing a lot of shit from a local residence. He got into a fight with the owner of the house and ended up killing everyone in the building (Which was two parents and their children). The police caught him and gave him a jail sentence for the rest of his natural life, leaving the two older Lakota children to help their mother care for Felix while she worked 3 jobs. Karen and Stefan now have jobs of their own so Claudia's been able to lay off the crazy overtime work, but she's still really focused on being the glue holding the family together. **

**Roy Mustang married Riza after he had become the Fuhrer and escaped lethal punishment from his trial concerning Ishval, and they had three children - Gracia (23), who now works at Fort Briggs, and Zack and Charles (both 20), who are twins that are currently studying alchemy under both Edward and Alphonse.**

**Ling and Lan Fan broke tradition and married, having no children (But Ling continued on with his Emperor-y ways, so he has royal kids and stuff).**

**And... yeah...**

**If you still don't understand anything, I'll try my best to explain things!**

**Thank you for reading!**


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